


Fox

by StolenVampires



Series: Masks [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Death, Internalized Homophobia, Light gore/Blood, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:16:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StolenVampires/pseuds/StolenVampires
Summary: The Mask of the Dragon remains. The Mask of the Fox shatters.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ending to the Main fic- Masks. Please read that fic first to better understand this one. The end of the story from Jesse's Side. (If reading in order, Jesse, Hanzo, Combined is the intended route).

White lights hurt his eyes as he woke up. In his mind's eye he could see the snow falling around him. Melting to water as it hit his skin, he had screamed into the air as he raced forward. He knew it was too late by the time he touched the body. There was too much red- stalk against the white snow. But the blue crackling light that lingered, still swirling around him had chased away the devil himself. Was Reaper dead? 

He hadn't a clue. 

But he, but Hanzo was-  
Bile and sorrow came up suddenly in one all encompassing wave. Jesse rolled over in the hospital bed despite the pain, contents of his stomach landing across linoleum floor as he heard nurses rush in, urging him back down. Military hospital, he realized. They were speaking in Russian. Either he'd been handed off to another nation, or transferred while he'd been out. Likely transferred, Angela would have pulled strings. This was all his fault. He'd seen his mentor, his teacher, his idol in that hellscape of a town where he let his anger run wild and he'd given chase like a trigger happy fool.  
A fool with a death wish.

Pressed back down on the bed, the nurses spoke in soothing tones as the tubes in his nose burned while he tried to suck in deep breaths but failed. It had hurt so much. Hanzo had been hot then cold. Burning him up with small slices of affection, stolen glances. McCree saw himself in Hanzo. Afraid that the world would bite you for loving other men, that what you were was wrong. Deadlock had beat that into him. Reyes had beat it out of him. Overwatch had taught him that it was okay, he was safe, he was human, he was loved. He could love.  
No one had taught Hanzo that. No one reached out to the man who had more demons on his back than ghosts. McCree had taken one look at Hanzo's expression that first night on base and known. The flush of color, the panic in eyes, the small twitch and change in posture. Victim. Like the hare caught in headlights. Frozen, Hanzo's blush at a simple pet name, a touch of fingers to bare shoulder and McCree felt his heart jump to his throat. Hanzo was as attracted to him and he was to Hanzo. The only problem was Hanzo thought it was wrong, when trust was?  
Jesse could see how utterly right it could be.

He should have backed off. Shouldn't have let himself think he could fix the archer, but he did. He'd fallen for the assassin. The way he smiled just so with the tiniest tick of his mouth. How he was silent and reclusive yet so gentle with everything. How he wouldn't say a word, but he made sure people had water in their packs. Leaving rice in the cooker for Hana and Mei. Setting out ammunition after he practiced for when he'd go in. How he sent off for tea that he didn't drink, but had left for Genji to find. How he'd seen a fallen bird from a nest, and taken cuts from the mother as he climbed the tree to set it back in it's nest. Hanzo, who'd lingered by too long near the team when there was a sniper- because he would be seen last, but see them first.  
Hanzo, who had saved a child and nearly died their first mission- all while the team suspected he didn't care for anyone at all.

Hanzo, stupid, stubborn, math genius, quiet, reserved, handsome, brilliant and shy Hanzo.  
Jesse wept as he wished he could have done more, metal fist gripping the bars on the side of the hospital bed hard enough to bend the rods. His human arm over his face as ugly sobs tugged pain from every part of him.

His hat was on a chair along with his other affects. But nowhere was any sign on Hanzo. Nowhere, could he see the archer who deserved so much more than the world had to offer him. The one who of all of them, Jesse thought deserved so much better than what the world had done to him.

 

Later, when Angela was sitting beside him, telling him everything, Jesse would wonder when he started to cry. Maybe it was seeing Storm Bow. Maybe it was the blood soaked gold scarf. The scent of cherry blossoms and sake. Or maybe it was the finality of her words.  
"As far as we can tell- Genji can tell- he sent the dragons to protect you. It left him exposed."  
His fault. He'd run off. Been so hurt by Hanzo's rejection. That Hanzo who could have chosen to try had given up on him, on himself, on them- Jesse had gone into battle wanting to drawn that anger in pain. To feel a bullet in his skin. To have an excuse. To maybe know if Hanzo cared even a damn as much as he did for him.   
The sight of Dragons rushing forward, chasing away the barrel of twin shotguns. Blue light crackling around him in a blanket of thunder and lightning that made him feel alive. The arrow at his feet, and the sight of those guns at Hanzo's back. The sound of flesh being ripped apart, blood flying into the air before the body fell to the snow. Hot tears burned down Jesse's face as Angela rubbed his back.   
All because he'd gone in hot. He'd gone in wanting pain, a death. He'd seen Reaper, gabriel, and wanted to end it all. End himself, thinking he'd failed Hanzo. Failed at his last chance to maybe, maybe find happiness with someone else, someone who could match him. Who had looked at him so many times like he might just be-  
Jesse wished he'd told Hanzo he saw. He noticed. But months he'd given him silent time. To try and coax it from the man. But the roots of Hanzo's pain had been too deep. Wrapped too tight on the archer.   
"I was in love with him Ange. It's my fault, I should've- I should've-"  
She shushed, him, holding him close as he wailed.

 

Two months and the funeral was small as it was over all too quick.   
Just members of the team. Respects given. The plaque silver and gleaming in morning light. It sat on the wall at the base like all the others. Silent reminders of fallen soldiers. Heroes left forgotten by the world. Hana had cried louder than the others. Hanzo had promised to play games with her on her stream. He'd treated her like an adult, talked with her about the war and her home. He cared, she said, he cared and had been the only one who bothered to ask her about it and talk with her without telling her where she went wrong.  
"He listened. He was just- He always listened, no matter how stupid it was." She cried so hard, Lucio held her up. 21 now, she was still so young. Still so much a child that had been dragged into a war and robbed of her youth- one she clung to through her games.   
Mei had taken it hard, whispering in words Jesse couldn't understand. Later, he'd find out she'd been secretly raising a sapling to gift him at Christmas. A tiny cherry tree that would smell like the ones from his home.   
Satya had said that he was brilliant- high praise, but it said so much of him. Satya was just as reclusive Hanzo- yet she was not one easily impressed or quick to compliment if at all.   
Winston gave a nice speech Jesse figured. Same with Genji. Rehearsed. They touted what basic good qualities that they knew. It's was Genji that made Jesse's heart drop. The small hitch in breath. If he had to guess, he'd left his visor on to hide the tears. 

He lingered longer than he should have. No one would know, could know, how much he'd loved him.   
"I'm sorry Jesse." Genji alone knew. Genji who's asked if Jesse really did love his brother, if it was born from more than just attraction and a want of friendship.  
"He loved you."   
Another crack in his heart. More tears that couldn't be hidden.  
"The dragons would not have lingered if he did not." Sometimes Jesse thought he saw them still. Twin spirals of blue light and the smell of rain and ozone.  
Cherry Blossoms in the spring.

"Why'd he do it Genji? Why-"  
"I suspect he realized it was you or him. He chose you." A small journal. Later he'd find out that Hanzo had left Genji everything. The exception being a bottle of Sake.   
A bottle of sake and his journal- kanji he couldn't read but translated by Athena that laid out the man's painful suffering in silence as he detailed his love for McCree- a love he had no idea that had been returned without reservations.

Sake and affirmations of love from a man tormented by his own doubts. A poor gift between would be lovers.

 

Two years, seven months, five days. The bottle of Sake sat next to a bottle of whiskey. The journal read in it's entirety.   
Reaper sighted in the Mojave Desert. Jesse went on the mission. His sight was grey. Vision clouding. His time was coming.

 

Hot, the sun burned as the team fell back to the gunfight with Talon. Retake the old base- they moved on, while Jesse lingered. Black smoke in the distance, he followed.

Bang.

The bullet missed, hitting red sandstone as Gabriel dodged. Jesse was not the same man, ready to face death. He had a purpose. A goal. Black smoke that spun around them, the crack of thunder in the distance. The scent of rain and ozone as he drew up Peacekeeper. A cherry blossom carved into the hilt. Gabriel went down, Mask broken and a face that was alien to him. The ruin of a man who'd once been his idol, now his enemy. Jack would resent him for this. Old soldiers had to complete their missions. They cleaned up after their own. But it was the sins of the father that fell to the son. It was the student who had to surpass the teacher.

Red filled his vision as he reloaded. A bullet gold and glittering in the yellow orange light of the desert sun. 

A halo of light around him, the crackle of thunder and lightning around them both.  
The ghost of a man, eyes bright with nothing but affection, love, peace as he'd fallen into the snow. The final moments of the man he'd loved.

He fell to the desert floor with a thud. Smoke fading in the warm wind. Rain kissed his skin and sunlight was too hot and too bright. A microburst, the name a thing Mei had taught him about when he'd called it a summer storm. His vision faded to grays. The reds, the golds, the colors were gone. Dead eye now more than just a name, now a reality.  
The roar of the storm, he stood there and wept as he looked up one last time as his sight left him, as the warmth of the sun raced down his chest and to the red muddy earth. 

They were beautiful. Two spiraling dragons of blue light, dancing in the desert sun light.

Jesse McCree smiled as he fell back to earth. Wet, red, he didn't know what he felt any longer. Only that he could finally rest. He'd done all he could. It lingered around him as he breathed deep, letting his body relax. Rain, Smoke, and cherry blossoms.

 

Nearby, a fox held a hare in it's mouth. It stared at Jesse for a moment before it ran back to the shadows.   
The fox's hunt was over, and their master's last wish done, twin dragons faded into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> First off, this is one of three endings open to Masks. Hanzo's ending as well as the combined ending is coming very shortly.  
> Secondly, welcome to my eternal sadness and i had a small cry because I'm my own worst enemy.  
> Third, thank you everyone who's left comments, kudos, or even shared this fic. It's my first completed work, and I cannot thank everyone in the fandom for their support. One day I'll find a beta, and come back with a better revised error free fic but for now, I need to hug my dogs.


End file.
